Stitchin' Fingers

Ring of Blog Tatters

Sunday, June 13, 2004

Here are a few of the stunning entries. I have to confess that I didn't enter to win and I didn't keep track of who won what prizes. I'd make a terrible judge and probably argue with the others all the time! LOL! Which is not meant to slight the judges here in the least. They had a formidable job and I pretty much agree with every thing they commented on my own entries. I'm not complaining at all. I won 2 blue ribbons and 4 red. The blue were for my elephant and the peach colored miniature hat shown elsewhere on this blog. I also won one of the shuttles with my hat, and that was special to me. I bought one of the Shuttle Shop Palmetto shuttles too.

I've been working on my Rose Garden Doily and I'm down to the last 3 motifs and in process of one of those! I also tried tatting with my finger and thumb holding the shuttle and pushing it forward and back instead of using my whole hand to manipulate it. I found that I can use a much shorter length of thread between shuttle and core thread by doing that and that I tend to tat much tighter that way. It also puts my hand at an odd angle and I noticed fatigue and aching periodically. I worked with it a little more and at some points, I was able to lessen the angle I was twisting but over the long haul, I can see carpal tunnel being a problem with this technique. I seldom experienced fatigue with my usual method. I may continue to work with it though - it might just be that my muscles aren't used to this motion and may compensate with familiarity.

I plan to enter the doily in our county fair in mid-July as well as Madeline, the Elephant. I'm putting the elephant on a different background before I frame her though. The gray fades into the taupe too much, IMO. I lost some points at Palmetto because of the long threads in the back possibly catching, but it was never my intention to display it like that anyway. I think I'm going to put it on a white background. Everyone says "what about the tusk???" LOL! I've decided to go around it, outline it in a fine black thread, just enough to define it a bit. If I get my pendant from Nina's class finished, I will enter it in hand-made jewelry. I can only enter 2 items in the tatting category so then I have to get creative to find other ways to make it visible to people. I could make some cards....maybe stamp them and then use tatting.........for the stamping category. I don't think I have a lot to enter this year. Oh, my filet crochet will go in crochet. But I don't have any Christmas tatting to put in the Christmas category. If I really got in gear, I could paint one of my gourds and put tatted flowers on it, but I don't think that is going to happen this year.

Well, it's been a busy weekend. No rain today so I was able to get some quite forlorn looking plants set out. My son came to do his laundry and put in my window ac so it's nice and comfy here now. I haven't been in town at all this weekend. I thought I'd go get a few groceries tonight and decided to wait until after work tomorrow.